Technoeconomic Analysis on a Hybrid Power System for the UK Household Using Renewable Energy: A Case Study

Abstract

The United Kingdom has abundant renewable energy resources from wind, solar, biomass and others. Meanwhile, domestic sector consumes large amount of electricity and natural gas. This paper aims to explore the potentials of a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) to supply power and heat for a household with the optimal configuration. A typical house in the United Kingdom is selected as a case study and its energy consumption is collected and analysed. Based on energy demands of the house, a distributed HRES including wind turbine, solar photovoltaic (PV) and biogas genset is designed and simulated to satisfy the power and heat demands. Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER) Software is used to conduct this technoeconomic analysis. It is found that the HRES system with one 1-kW wind turbine, one 1-kW sized biogas genset, four battery units and one 1-kW sized power converter is the most feasible solution, which can supply enough power and heat to meet the household demands. In addition, the HRES system has the lowest net present cost (NPC) of $14,507 and the lowest levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $0.588 kW−1·h−1. The case study is also quite insightful to other European countries.